At this rate, between North Korea, Charlottesville and the climate crisis, it's unclear if America can survive being too much "greater", as the political cartoonists in PDiddie's latest weekly collection illustrate...

I didn't want to say anything about this last week, given the hard fought and well won victory of Net Neutrality proponents. They worked hard and long and smartly and organized very well and deserved at least a few days of victory laps for the effort.

Indeed, as noted in attorney Ernie Canning's piece here Thursday, describing the legal contours and challenges the FCC's new ruling attempts to circumnavigate: "The new policy is unquestionably a victory for both the idea of Internet freedom, as well as for the unprecedented campaign waged by the public to advocate in favor of 'Net Neutrality' over the past several years. An outspoken public won the day, for a change, against very powerful interests. It was a victory that, particularly over previous years, seemed to be anything but assured."

So this thought is not meant to diminish the accomplishment of the army of Davids' who defied the odds and managed to defeat an army of Goliaths in a way that was virtually unthinkable even a year ago.

On Thursday, by way of a 3-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted 'Net Neutrality' regulations that embody the "bright-line" rules that had been proposed by President Barack Obama last November.

The new policy is unquestionably a victory for both the idea of Internet freedom, as well as for the unprecedented campaign waged by the public to advocate in favor of 'Net Neutrality' over the past several years. An outspoken public won the day, for a change, against very powerful interests. It was a victory that, particularly over previous years, seemed to be anything but assured.

Of course, as anticipated, the ruling drew harsh reactions from some Congressional Republicans as well as major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which could otherwise profit from the imposition of tolls on the Internet. (See two video explainers at end of article). Those reactions included a prediction by AT&T and by the Telecommunications Association, an industry trade group, that the new rules would be overturned either by Congress or the courts.

While both litigation and a GOP challenge to the newly adopted 'Net Neutrality' rules are almost certain, neither legal nor Congressional challenges are likely to succeed. Here's why…

On Monday, President Barack Obama, both in a surprisingly clear written statement and video-taped announcement (posted at end of this article), called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt "bright-line" rules that would ensure an "open and free" Internet via the concept of "net neutrality" --- a concept that would, in the President's words, ensure there "are no gatekeepers deciding which sites you get to access. There are no toll roads on the information superhighway." Anything less, the President proclaimed, "would threaten to end the Internet as we know it."

Though oversight similar to that called for by the President resulted in a record number of public comments (99% in favor) to the FCC, predictably, the President's announcement drew harsh reactions not only from the handful of corporations which could profit from those Internet highway tolls, but from their Republican allies. Following Obama's comments, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-FL), for example, quickly denounced "net neutrality", if somewhat cryptically, as "Obamacare for the Internet."

Republican opposition would amount to little more than public grousing, however, if, in accordance with the President's recommendations, the five Obama-appointed FCC Commissioners (only three can be of the same party) carefully craft new regulations that "reclassify Internet service under Title II of...the Telecommunications Act," a reclassification that would undo the damage wrought by the Republican George W. Bush-appointed FCC Commissioners in 2002.

It seems the corporate lobbyist/GOP strategy for opposing everything is now officially to charge: "It's a Government takeover of [fill in the blank]!!!"

No matter what it is. And no matter whether it's actually a "government takeover" of anything or not.

As the rightwing corporatists seem to feel the strategy found some purchase in the healthcare insurance reform debate, it looks like they'll be recycling this line for just about everything. (See our recent coverage of the CA power company's "power play" to use a "government takeover of electricity" scare to trick voters into supporting the outrageous Prop 16.)

The latest corporate scheme/campaign to employ the strategy is the AT&T-funded telecom industry's latest assault on Net Neutrality. Assuring the Internet stays open to all would be a "government takeover" of it, according to the newly launched propaganda campaign (their first deceptive video is posted at the bottom of this article) which kicked off yesterday with the help of, naturally, Grover Norquist.

The new, cynical assault on the public also offers us a good excuse to re-post a pro Net Neutrality campaign video in which your humble host played a small but enjoyable role...

Russian Television's English language satellite broadcast channel, RT, tracked me down on the road to comment on George W. Bush's speech yesterday at a conference on "Internet Freedom" at his George W. Bush Freedom Institute in Dallas.

A speech by Bush on "Internet Freedom"?! Irony much? Um, yes.

As it turns out, the Internet connection in the little town I was in was not stable enough to handle a Skype video interview, so my contribution had to be via telephone. Here's their story...

We didn't pay attention or speak up, until after it was too late to save our democracy. Let's not make the same mistake when it comes to saving the world's greatest democratizer ever, the Internet, for the people.

We already lost democracy, and will likely be fighting for years to get it back from the private corporate interests who have claimed ownership of it. Let's not let that same thing happen with The Internets...

We'd offer a BRAD BLOG T-Shirt to the first person who can name the two folks voicing the characters in the following "Net Neutrality" video posted this week by SaveTheInternet.com as a farewell gift to AT&T's now-former CEO Ed Whitacre. But as the company who made our shirts recently moved, and are in the process of putting together a new version of the shirt, we can't do that yet.

Instead, our "congratulations for a job well done" will have to do for whoever can identify the voices and post them in comments here. (Anybody who knows beforehand is disqualified!) Suffice it to say, both the man and the woman's voice should be very well known to readers of The BRAD BLOG.

Enjoy, and please spread the word!

UPDATE 1:11pm PT: What? Nobody's got a single guess??? Say it ain't so...UPDATE 4:24pm PT: Comments were broken! No wonder nobody left a guess! Now fixed! If you tried to leave a comment previously, please try again!UPDATE 6/13/07: One cat now out of the bag. The guy playing "Big Ed Whitacre" is me. The female voice remains elusive apparently.